


I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

by blackkat



Series: KushiMei Drabbles [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, F/F, First Meetings, Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 06:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20578076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: There are more things living down by the deep sea vents than Kushina knows.





	I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Hey how about Kushina meeting a merMei?

The wake of the whirlpools swirls Kushina’s hair around her, drags at her toes where they dangle in the water. From this distance, the fearsome pull that keeps sailors from their shores is just a mischievous tug, urging her back into the ocean, and Kushina can’t help but laugh at it. She leans forward, over the edge of the tide-wet rock, and far below where the ocean floor drops away, she can see flashes of red, bright bursts of scales as other Uzumaki play. 

“Kushina!” a voice calls, and Kushina waves to Komari as the other woman slips down beneath the waves. A moment later, her head reappears, short red hair plastered to her head, the flash of a long tail just visible beneath the surf. 

“Going to let another crab catch you, Komari?” Kushina shouts back, and laughs when Komari makes a rude gesture at her. 

“Get off your tail and come swim!” Komari calls, and a moment later she’s gone, diving deep with one last flick of a pale purple fin to mark her path. 

Kushina makes a rude sound, even though there’s no one to hear it, and leaps into the water. The sharp edges of the mussels on the side of the rock snag her hair, but an instant later the current catches her, curls around her like a friend and sweeps her away, whirling her far out into the open ocean. 

The shift is instinctive, as natural as breathing. Kushina dives, and as she does the ache in her lungs twinges, _changes._ She feels it like a ripple, a numb rush that washes across her skin from the top of her head all the way down to her toes, and suddenly her toes are a tail, brilliant red and sweeping out behind her in a powerful stroke. The momentum sends her surging forward, past Mito where she’s holding court in the coral reef, further past more mermaids in the kelp forest. Komari shouts something as she passes, but Kushina rolls, flips her fin at the woman, and keeps going, letting the thrill of speed carry her down, down, down into the darkness where the sunlight can’t reach. It’s well past the edges of Uzushio, where the sea floor drops into dark canyons. 

This close to the vents, the water warms significantly, and Kushina smiles, slows. People from Uzushio come down here for the heat, for the strange fish that swim here where there’s almost no light. Kushina loves the strangeness of it, the danger, the adventure, even if she can’t spend more than a few hours in the heat before it drives her back to shallower waters. 

She thinks, for a moment, of turning around, heading back. Mito hadn’t looked busy, and when she has the time she can usually be convinced to teach Kushina a few magic tricks, things to awe Minato and his pod of dolphin mers when they pass every few weeks. Sometimes, when she’s feeling particularly deadly, she’ll teach Kushina other things, spells that bring storms and shake the ground far beneath the surface to raise tidal waves. Mito is their queen, and whispers say that Kushina will be the next queen, which she hardly _minds._ But she has years of learning before that, and—

Deep down in the darkness, something stirs. 

Kushina pauses, cocks her head. That far down the canyon the heat is so great she can’t last more than a few minutes before she has to retreat, and if there’s something _large_ living down there, is must be almost impervious to the burning water. A few fish that can survive are one thing, but…

“Hello?” she calls, and dives down, following the steep slant of the ground. The pressure grows quickly, this deep, but Kushina ignores it, swims forward with careful sweeps of her tail until she can see the plume of the closest vent in the distance. “It’s not polite to hide when someone’s looking for you, you know.”

For a moment, there’s no sign of any other presence. Kushina frowns, debates calling a light to her hand—

“A surface mer,” a throaty voice purrs, right behind her, and fingers catch the crimson strands of her hair as she whirls. “How _cute.”_

Kushina takes one look at the speaker and loses all her breath at once. _“Oh,”_ she says, caught halfway between wonder and delight. “You’re from the vents?”

The other woman smirks, showing just a flash of dagger teeth. Her hair is like old blood, a rust-red cloud in the water around her, and her eyes glow. The tips of her fingers are claws, sharp and dangerous, and her scales are thick and blue, so dark she’s hardly visible in the gloom, but scattered with scales that glow like lava falling into the sea. 

_Deadly,_ Kushina thinks, and almost wants to shiver under the mer’s look. Kushina is a deadly thing too, but her danger is magic and waves and winds, touching the surface but going no deeper. This—this is the danger of the deepest parts of the ocean, something instinctively dark and alluring. 

“I’m Mei,” the woman says, and slips closer. The whirl of her hair in the current slides across Kushina’s skin, tangles with her own hair. There’s barely two feet of space between them, and Kushina’s fingers itch to touch, to reach out and pull Mei even closer. 

“Kushina,” she returns, and grins. Self-restraint has never been something she’s cared to practice, so she leans in, curls her fingers around skin that’s almost as hot as the thermal vents, and laughs. “Is everything hiding in the dark down there as pretty as you? I might have to go wandering more often if it is, you know?”

Mei snorts, but the curve of her smile is pleased, and she twists her fingers tighter into Kushina’s hair. The brush of her fire-hot tail twining around Kushina’s pulls a gasp from her, sends a shiver down her spine. 

“I think you should play with me, instead of going looking for other people,” Mei says, and that smirk is all intent and feigned innocence. “I might get lonely up here, so far from my home.”

Kushina laughs, lets her bright fins brush Mei’s dark ones. “Well,” she says, and wraps her arms around Mei’s neck, pressing their bodies together. “We can’t have _that._ Want me to show you our island?”

Just for an instant, bright curiosity beats out the heat in Mei’s eyes. “You have an _island?”_ she asks, and Kushina smothers a smile. She’s _cute._ “I—yes, I’d love to see it.”

Giggling, Kushina lets go of her just enough to slide her hands down hot bare skin, tangling their fingers. “Come on,” she urges, and pulls Mei back the way she came. “There’s a whole village we built right into the water, you’ll love it!”

Mei stares at her for a long moment, like she’s startled, and then smiles. It’s sweet, bright for all the heat in it, and she grips Kushina’s fingers tightly in return. 

“I’m sure I will,” she says, and lets Kushina pull her towards the surface. 


End file.
